Sports Hochi filed a report this morning that says that Hanshin Tigers could be preparing a 3-year deal worth a total 700M yen for Hiroyuki Kobayashi. I have no idea what kind of money Kobayashi is looking for in terms of money, but based on the current MLB market, he likely won't get an offer this big.

Incidentally, Kobayashi is a class A free agent. That means if the Tigers are successful in landing him, the Marines will either be able to claim one unprotected player from the Tigers' roster + 50% of his 2010 salary; or claim 80% of his 2010 salary. Kobayashi made 170M yen last year, so 50% would be 8.5M yen and 80% would be 136M yen. Could end up being a nice deal for the Marines.